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An anonymous reader writes "Yesterday Engadget Mobile received a nice letter from Deutsche Telekom / T-Moblie demanding that they stop using the color magenta on engadgetmobile.com. ("Yep, seriously" they say.) Today several sites have gone magenta in a show of solidarity."

You could still have been a wealthy merchant without being a noble - a regular pleb wouldn't be able to afford purple dye, of course, but a number of people might.

Also, it should be noted that only the Roman emperor was allowed to wear an entirely purple piece of clothing at all. Senators (that is, those from the senatorial class) were allowed a broad purple stripe on their tunics; equites (knights) were allowed a thin purple stripe. So even a thin purple stripe (much less expensive than full purple) could get you into trouble.

Next the affair of the [unauthorised] royal robe was investigated, and after the workers in purple had been tortured and had admitted the making of a short sleveless tunic, a man named Maras was brought forward.

Are you referring to the toga praetexta, the toga pulla, toga picta, or a variation of the toga trabea, and as worn by men, women, citizens, freedmen, plebeians, patricians, quirites, priests, members of the Senate, or some other group?

Wrong, try again. The color and the product have to be linked in some way, with the color being distinctive to the product. When you think of magenta, it's highly unlikely that the first thing that pops into your head is "T Mobile". T Mobile can't trademark the color magenta any more than IBM can trademark the color blue or UPS can trademark the color brown. In specific contexts, sure. In relation to specific logos or other marks, you bet. But not the color by itself in such generic cases.

Maybe you should try clicking one more link from the page you linked to here. "Whether a colour can serve as a trade mark depends on the visual perception of the viewer. Normally, the distinctiveness through use must be shown." I'm sorry, but until you can show me how magenta&mdashor any generic color&mdashis distinctively associated with T Mobile, you fail.

Just to be fair:you can register a trademark on a color(pantone)/font face and especially the combination of the two...so it is plausible.We all can assume that grammatical errors can happen.so it is still plausible.We all know how *reasonable* lawyers are, and to that end the elimination of the use of a color seems perfectly reasonable.so it is still plausible.BUT the letter was awfully nice compared to the Normal type of C&D [farmersreallysucks.com] but not as enlightened as this one [farmersreallysucks.com].So it is no longer plausible and I (and Oc

You do realize that they uploaded that logo, the "deceptive" one you're berating, today, which just happens to be April 1? And that they did so specifically to spite [youtube.com] T-Mobile? And that they wrote a blog post [engadget.com] stating exactly their actions and intent?

I've been a T-Mobile subscriber for about 7 years now and am currently paying them for 4 phones on my family plan.* If asked prior to today, I would have said that "their color" was a shade of aqua-ish blue. When I went to the T-Mobile page after reading the engadget article, it was covered in that horrible magenta. Maybe they should rename the color to "OMG Ponies Pink."

Trademark on a color? Next thing you know they'll want trademarks on letters or digits.

Any company that wishes to trademark a logo (or other trade dress) should be required to not use things that are already in common usage. Imagine if the American Heart Association went after everyone else who used the color red in their logo?

There's a limited number of colors, letters, and digits. Choosing one of those and expecting it to be unique is stupid.

The point is, I can paint my house Cat Yellow or John Deere Green without worrying about being sued by either company. Hell, I could paint my car that color. As long as I didn't try to pass it off as related to those companies.

And that's the problem... T-Mobile is suing Engadget Mobile for painting their house T-Mobile Magenta.

Usually when these things get posted to slashdot they seem pretty cut-and-dry, and I can't argue with your specific example, but there are some mitigating factors here:1) T-Mobile's letter was nice (this shouldn't factor in court or anything, but...)
a) they stated they were "obligated" to defend their trademark
b) they specifically kissed engadget's ass
c) there's no doubt that engadget's current logo infringes (this was done intentionally, as a FUCK YOU to T-Mobile)2) Engadget Mobile specifically deals in the area (mobile phones ya know) that T-Mobile deals in

What if you painted your tractor repair shop John Deere Green? Or used it in your logo?

I'm not sure how this is going to turn out, but I'm not going to cancel my T-Mobile service that I don't have out of spite or anything. Bloggers can be whiny sons of bitches, just like lawyers.

Indeed. I expected a nastygram, but the letter was very straight-forward and, aside from presupposing that engadget would no doubt agree to the change, fair. Probably the nicest legal letter from a company I've ever seen posted online. The reaction was overblown and unnecessary.

No, it simply is not. 1) Colors can easily constitute a major portion of a trademark (IANAL). 2) Companies are obligated to protect their trademarks as closely as is reasonable, lest they lose it to the public domain (if that term is proper for non-copyright-related IP). Given that the two entities share a similar field, and that it is the same word ("mobile") that is colorized, it would be irresponsible of T-mobile to not consider this as a potential threat to their trademark. I'm not saying they would win

I agree... this smacks of a corporate/blogging troll to me. Notice how T-Mobile only asked them to stop using the color magenta in a "trademark-infringing" way. They never claimed that the color magenta was trademarked - it is only trademarked in relation to their logo and corporate identity. In other words, "please don't try to confuse our customers by making it appear our companies are somehow related."

It seemed like a perfectly reasonable request to me. The summary talked of "demanding", but I have to say, that was perhaps the nicest "demand" I've ever heard.

But, you could probably not put out a blog called "landscaping gadgets" and use John Deere green. It's likely that somebody will think it's a blog run by John Deere.Trademark and trade dress are all about customer confusion -- is it reasonable that somebody could go to the engadget mobile site and think it was related to T-mobile? What if the site was reviewing T-mobile services? By my eye, there's a likelihood that somebody will be confused.

Well from that point of view, the Telekom magenta is a darker colour to the Engadget magenta. Engadget is not stealing the precise hue that T-Mobile uses.Nor are they using the same font.Both logos have a gratutitous use of excess dots, but in quite different ways.

Believe it. "Pullman Brown" [wikipedia.org]" (officially "UPS Brown" [wikipedia.org]) has been a trademark of United Parcel Service for a looong friggin time. They're pretty aggressive about protecting it too, seeing as how their whole corporate image is tied to the color so strongly ("what can Brown do for you?" etc.)

Even if they do own a trademark on Pullman Brown, Trademark is not copyright. The prosecution of a trademark infringement is supposed to have to show customer confusion or loss/harm involved in the others business.So if you paint your business car Pullman Brown but don't happen to deliver packages, haul freight, offer business supply services there isn't any reasonable harm to UPS. Now if you opened a store that was called the Unified Parchment Sales, and used a brown and tan logo saying 'UPS Store' on the

>Trademark on a color? Next thing you know they'll want trademarks on letters or digits.

This is quite a well established type of trademark. There's a brand of Chocolate in the UK which has successfully prevented other chocolatiers from using 'their' shade of purple. But that's kinda the point here-

T-Mobile is well within their rights to stop other companies using their trademarked colour, IF those companies are competing in the same market. T-Mobiles lawyers must be on crack (or maybe they are hoping for

Engadget don't sell phones, or airtime, and so there is no room for potential consumer confusion.

No, but they regularly enga(d)ge in phone reviews and commentary on the industry in which T-Mobile operates. They are part of the mobile phone business.

If Engadget were to post rumors regarding the specs of an upcoming T-Mobile handset, there could be a real risk of consumer confusion over whether the information is from an official T-Mo source or not.

>No, but they regularly enga(d)ge in phone reviews and commentary on the industry in which T-Mobile operates. They are part of the mobile phone business.
Trademarks don't cover that, the law's only about preventing a direct loss of sales which could result from such confusion.

If Engadget were to post rumors regarding the specs of an upcoming T-Mobile handset, there could be a real risk of consumer confusion over whether the information is from an official T-Mo source or not.

If only our legal system wasn't based on the assumption that people are morons.

Perhaps they're acting very preemptively against having an "Apple" pulled on them.

Yes, that's what they're trying.

But just like the Apple Corps./Apple Computers situation, they won't be able to successfully litigate until Engadget-Mobile start selling phones/airtime.

(In their original situations, Apple Corps had to refrain from entering the computer biz, and Apple Computers had to stay away from the music biz. They were both allowed to use 'Apple', just as Engadget/T-Mobile can use magenta now. When the

It is not according to the European Courts. You can trademark a colour for a specific market (say, telecommunications). The problem is that many telco's now see the Internet as their market and thus assume their trademark applies their as well. Orange has been doing the same for years, threating websites that use orange on their website or in their domainname (yes, I lost my domain / website as well, because it isn't all talk, they really sue and are prepared to fight it to the European Court). So, no orange, no magenta, which colour will be next?

IMHO, granting trademark on colours is another Tragedy of the Commons.

No, they are claiming trademark on "t-mobile", which is their company's name and registered trademark. The issue is that the website noticed that their name ends in "t-mobile", although the "t" is part of another word. So they changed just the "t-mobile" to be in "T-mobile"'s company colours. Its like there was a website called "Backslash Dotage" for some reason, and one day out of the blue they decided that just "slash Dot" would appear in teal, while the rest of their name remained black. One might t

They've just changed it - on purpose. I think it's great they've got the balls to do that - so many people pussyfoot around these issues today. What colour are they going to use - seriously?! There is no relationship between engadget and t-mobile, and it never even crossed anyone's mind that there might be until some overly sensitive corporate schmuck brought the lawyers in to write letters.

1.) If T-Mobile doesn't defend their trademarks they might lose them.
2.) The color magenta is SUPER EXTREMELY ÜBER-IMPORTANT to T-Mobile and its sister companies in Germany. It defines their whole corporate design and every German knows them by this color. They can't afford to lose their color trademark.
3.) The Engadget Mobile logo is similar to T-Mobile's corporate design in more ways than the color - the decorative bar between the words is similar to the "Digits" (small squares) that have been a mainstay of the various T-corporations' corporate design for years.
4.) The letter written by T-Mobile was polite, non-threatening and friendly. They merely asked Engadget to please pick a different color.
5.) Engadget showed that success does not equate professionalism and decided to answer in the most pissy way possible. "We don't have to play nice! We're the internet! Woo!"

I agree that corporations usually are soulless beasts hellbent on making our lives miserable in the name of profit, but T-Mobile is hardly being evil here. They perceive a threat to one of their most important trademarks and before they even get out the legal club they nicely ask Engadget to pick a different color. Given that losing that trademark could cost them millions of Euros and years of lost PR work they're being exceptionally nice.

It's Deutsche Telekom. It's in Europe.Here in Europe, the state sponsored university hospital tried to sue our local medical student association because we made a spoof of their logo for the association, this kind of stupidity happens. But, on the other hand, as this is Europe, not suit-trigger-happy USA, the suit wasn't allowed*, and the students even pulled a weirder spoof as their next iteration of the logo.

* - In most country were trademarks are valid, a company has to prove that yo

Slashdot could join in by reviving the OMG Ponies theme. Pink is close enough to magenta, right?

T-Mobile calls that color "magenta" but any normal person sees it as pink. It's pink. Clearly. Also, it's an horrific shade of pink, you'd be completely crazy to use it in a brand - unless you are indeed making toy ponies. The OMG Ponies theme burned our eyes, so just think what hell it must be to work for Deutsche Telekom (the pink thing just the tip of the iceberg there too).

I didn't see that ad, but I find it to be icing on the cake, honestly. What's happening here is, at the very moment you're hating T-Mobile for being such asshats, you see one of their ads -- and thus hate them more.

And on top of it all, T-Mobile is paying for the privilege of being featured in an article on how stupid they're being!

The letter is a combination of the TMobile trademark lawyers doing what lawyers do...billing hours. Plus, they are protecting the TMoblie trademark. With Trademark law you must prove that you have diligently protect your TM by notifying parties of infringement. In every suspected case. With Endgadget there is no confusion or dilution of the TM. But, if someday TMobile has to defend their TM in court against another mobile provider who might use the color..they can haul out the big box of all the letters they sent to everyone who used Magenta and prove they diligently protected their TM

Not really, if you stir up the pot then you are likely to lose your trademark status. Going after phone carriers probably ok. Going after bloggers who gives you free advertisement. Probably pretty stupid move both legally and in the business sense.

I'm looking at the calendar and thinking, "this has to be a joke!". But then I think about all the bullshit trademark/copyright/patent lawsuits of the past few years. I honestly have no idea if this is real or not.

Since this "Free Magenta" [freemagenta.nl] website has been around for several months in The Netherlands. Lots of food for thought there, such as what do we do about Gay Pride, the Pink Panther, and C*YK color systems? There are suggested error messages for users of Photoshop ("Sorry, this color does not belong to you!") as well as touching eulogies for good old #FF0090 -- or 255-0-144, whichever you prefer. They date the demise of magenta as a free color to 2007.

Trademarking a colour is not unheard of, there are plenty of companies who have trademarked a colour. E.g. Cadbury ( the chocolate maker ) has trademarked the colour purple. But note that in this case, you cannot use purple as the main packaging/advertising colour in a chocolate product, it can be used elsewhere without issues.
This is just more of the same. The issue will be whether the two companies are 'selling' a similar product.

First off, it's a specific shade of magenta and in a specific industry; they can't just go around yelling at everyone to stop using it. A good example would be if FedEx painted all their trucks UPS brown. I don't think a single person would disagree that that is massive trademark infringement. I think T-Mobile realizes that they have almost no chance of this claim holding up in court, which is why their letter was so nice; they were basically just asking Engadget to do them a favor and stopping using their

...fucking idiots. The site says nothing about a law suit, they merely received a request from the T-Mobile legal department to stop using the color magenta in association with the Endgadget MOBILE section of their site. First of all, READ THE FUCKING ARTICLE BEFORE COMMENTING. How hard is that? Quit this knee-jerk response to something that didn't actually happen. Second, if you are going to comment, KNOW THE FUCKING TOPIC. Trademarks MUST be protected and T-Mobile has a strong brand in the cellular/mobile space built around the color magenta. Asking Endgadget to stop using the color magenta on their MOBILE section is not unreasonable as it does encroach on their trademark. If Endgadget says no (an their response seems to say this in spades) then T-Mobile will need to bring this before a court to actually decide the matter. Shocking as this may be to hear, it really doesn't matter what a bunch of geeks with no experience in the law, intellectual property, or branding and identity think on the matter either.

I can't remember what happened but I hope that neither side won, because Orange are stupid to try and claim ownership of a colour... and Easyjet are bastards that have sued anyone that uses the word "easy" in any domain name!

Lawyer: "Excuse me, but what are you doing?"
Homer: "I'm writing a song!"
Lawyer: "Go ahead, but don't use A-flat or G-natural. Those notes are owned by disney."
Homer: "Awww..."
Lawyer: "That's A-flat!"
Homer, on the same note, but rising: "Awww..."

"As a trademark owner, from time to time Deutsche Telekom looks at usage that could lead to confusion in the marketplace."

I have to side with the Lawyers (or at least the above comment). I have never seen this web site before, but it looks like it is a review/consumer driven site that in not necessarily corporate friendly, and I do see how some consumers (idiots) would confuse this site as being T-Mobile related. Of course give credit to the graphics guy for making such a corporate-looking site that made a mammoth corporation reveal its insecurities.

With that said making color the issue is probably the result of having nothin

I wish it were a joke. When this came into the Dutch news 6 months ago or something, some people started the Free Magenta [freemagenta.nl] movement. T-mobile NL claimed that they were ordered to claim the colour in Dutch copyright by Deutsche Telecom AG.

It's not copyright, it's trademark. I know it's possible to trademark colours in USA, but you cannot (at least until recently) trademark colours in the EU. You can trademark a pattern in a combination with colour(s), but even then it's not certain.